The alternative is a heart attack
A year later, each patient had an angiogram, a special X ray that measures artery blockages. They were also asked not to smoke, to take a half-hour walk each day (or an hour three times a week), and to practice stress management exercises, such as yoga or meditation. This was new for them, but they were given classes in how to prepare meals and some prepared foods to take home. The goal was to essentially eliminate animal fat and cholesterol. They were asked to follow a vegetarian diet, which meant spaghetti marinara, minestrone, bean burritos, vegetable chili, rice pilaf, etc., but no red meat, poultry, or fish.
A second group of patients got a completely different program. In most cases, that meant favoring fish and chicken over red meat, taking the skin off the chicken before cooking it, quitting smoking, and trying to stay active. The control group was asked to follow the instructions of their regular doctors. Dr. Ornish's research subjects were heart patients in the San Francisco Bay area. His research papers in the Lancet in 1990 and the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995 are now milestones of modern medicine.
Chest pain melts away, and blockages in the arteries actually shrink noticeably within the first year. But the most important advance, by far, is research showing that a four-step program of simple diet and lifestyle changes actually lets the arteries begin to clean themselves out, without medication or surgery. Garlic, oats, soy products, and oddly enough, beans and walnuts are some of the foods that have shown this effect in research studies. In this chapter, we will see how foods can cut your cholesterol dramatically. From this dismal scenario much more attractive choices have emerged. Within six to eight years, repeat surgery is needed to clean out the arteries again. And it is only temporary. In about 6 percent of cases, it causes brain damage.' Heart bypass surgery is now routine in Western countries, even at the risk that some will not survive the procedure. Dr. Dean Ornish, a young, Harvard-trained physician, showed that, indeed, heart disease can be reversed. But more importantly, if it is possible to reverse blockages in the leg arteries, that means it can be done in other arteries, too, even in the heart itself. This was important because blockages in these arteries lead to muscle pains after even a short walk, a condition called claudication.
Researchers first showed that blockages can be reversed in the arteries to the legs. Drugs might reduce the pain temporarily, but sooner or later a bypass operation or a plaque-busting angioplasty is necessary to restore blood flow to the heart.
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